Vikendi map takes PUBG back up above 1 million concurrent users

The arrival of the new Vikendi map has taken the PC version of PUBG back up above 1 million concurrent users, arresting a recent decline.

Vikendi’s arrival helped to bump PUBG’s concurrent users on Steam to more than 1.1 million, after it fell to a peak of less than 900,000 players in November 2018. As the Steam Charts for the year show, in January 2018, the battle royale game hit a peak figure of over 3.2 million players on Steam.

PUBG’s snowy Vikendi map has been favourably received by the game’s hardcore followers and is generally held to combine the best attributes of existing maps Sanhok and Erangel. It also brought some popular gameplay tweaks, such as an improved parachute system, along with a new assault rifle and a snowmobile.

PUBG’s ability to retain its players has come under particular scrutiny since the arrival of the highly polished Call of Duty: Black Ops 4, with its Blackout battle royale mode (which pretty much emulates PUBG, but in Call of Duty’s more sophisticated engine). Rival battle royale game Fortnite also boasted more than 8 million concurrent users at one point in November 2018. But the Vikendi map has clearly brought some lapsed PUBG players back into the fold.

For further information on Vikendi, check out this PUBG Corp blogpost marking its arrival.

Steve Boxer has been writing about videogames since the early 1990s. His first console was an Atari VCS, and he misspent most of his youth in the 1980s in the arcades. As well as for Green Man Gaming, he can be found writing for The Guardian, Empire, TechRadar and Pocket-Lint. He’s currently having trouble deciding whether his favourite console is his Xbox One X or his Switch, and plays a wide range of games, but especially RPGs (he loves a good JRPG) action-adventure titles, shooters of all descriptions and driving games. Follow him here.